A Consuming Fire, page 16
“Why did you steal from the wanderers in the first place?” Anya asked gently. All the time they spoke, they’d been sitting with their hands clasped, and she couldn’t help glancing down at Tieran’s strange, changeling skin against her own. In spite of everything, his touch sent warmth tingling through her fingers and running up her wrists. One of his thumbs moved, slow and soft, tracing circles on the back of her hand.
He shrugged. “I just—I know what you mean, about being afraid. I’m afraid of things too. Of getting close to people. Of them hating who I am once they know me. Of losing anyone, if I start to care about them. So I leave, before anything I’m afraid of can happen. I make them hate me, before they can get there on their own.”
The last of Anya’s tears had been spent, and she shivered now, not with grief but with cold. The night was cool and damp, and mist was gathering in the forest hollows.
Tieran got to his feet, keeping one of Anya’s hands in his own. When he’d stood, he helped her up and led her through the ferns, away from the mess she’d made. Shrugging out of the oilskin coat, he draped it around her shoulders, ears turning red as he did.
“You know, this would be a lot more gallant if it wasn’t my coat in the first place,” Anya sniffed.
Tieran gave her a look. “Don’t bother me when I’m being nice—I haven’t had much practice. Anyhow, it’s all I’ve got.”
They walked southward, back toward the wanderers’ camp, and Anya put her hands into the pockets of Tieran’s coat.
“There’s an awful lot in here,” she said groggily, exhausted by her own grief and by the troubles of the road. “What is this? Is this a bone?”
“One of your good-luck bones,” Tieran said, looking assiduously away from her and out at the moonlit wood. “Took it from the pack. You’ve got five more, and why should you have all the luck?”
For a moment, Anya thought about chiding him for taking the charm without asking. But she was finally growing warmer inside the oilskin coat, and there was something wistful on the boy’s sharp face, as he stared at the looming trees.
“Tieran?” Anya said.
“Hm?”
“You can have anything that’s mine. You don’t have to ask to take it. Or feel bad if you do.”
“Don’t like that,” Tieran said with a shake of his head. “Don’t like having you trust me. Anya, I’m—I’m not the right sort of person for that. I’m never going to do anything but let you down. So don’t do this. Don’t act like I’m someone to put your faith in, just because I’ve been all right to people a time or two.”
“You’ve come after me three times now,” she told him. “Do you know what we say in Weatherell? Once for chance, twice for luck, thrice tells the heart of a thing.”
“Doesn’t mean nothing. Doesn’t mean I won’t leave in the end.” But Tieran looked at her and they were caught, gazes tangled together in the moonlight. For one shining moment, Anya felt a pull between them—something perfect and fragile and infinitely precious. She took a halting step closer, wanting to obey that pull, to lay hold of what stretched like gossamer between her own heart and his. To strengthen it and lend it force and light.
The thief faltered, and glanced away.
“Don’t like this, either,” Tieran muttered. “You looking at me like I’m worth something when we both know I’m not. Think you could hurt me, Anya Astraea. Think you could break my heart, and no one’s ever come near it before.”
Anya watched him, half poised for flight, like a rabbit crouching in the underbrush or a fox caught out on the trail. And a new fear woke in her—that perhaps he was right. Perhaps she was a danger, with unquenchable grief and unholy vengeance mingling like water and fire at her center. With her dark desire to end a thing that had always been worshiped before.
Vengeance is mine; I will repay, said the still small voice that had taken up residence in Anya’s soul.
“Then you break my heart first,” she offered, to hide her fear and to silence the voice. “I’ve already told you what’s mine is yours, and that I’m in pieces. How much can a little more really hurt?”
Tieran only shook his head wordlessly. For a long while, quiet stretched between them. Night insects sang among the sea of ferns, and wind sighed overhead. They were nearly to the encampment now, and a distant sound of voices drifted to them, along with the faint smell of woodsmoke.
“Don’t go,” Tieran said at last. “Don’t climb that mountain. Don’t offer yourself to no god. I told you before—you’ve given enough. It’s not fair. I don’t want to watch you give something more.”
“Life’s not fair,” Anya said, though her stomach was in knots and guilt slicked her palms. “And you don’t have to watch, you can always leave. I can’t, though, Tieran. I have to go—this is my road and my lot and my ending. If you’d come down and seen those girls from Banevale—I can’t let that go on a moment longer than necessary.”
Tieran was still pale and unhappy in the moonlight, but something else had written itself across his face—a grudging respect. In spite of her lies it buoyed Anya up, and patched the hole left in her by the penance she’d made before Orielle.
“And you told me you’re not brave,” the thief said.
SIXTEEN Sharp Things
Anya was unaccountably restless. In less time than she’d thought possible, the wanderers had entirely reorganized themselves, galvanized by their encounter with the unfortunate party from Banevale. They’d left the travelers in the care of their own elders and families with small children, and Matthias and Lee had been up well before dawn, settling all those who could not risk the journey north on an expansive and out-of-the-way farm in the vicinity, whose caretakers were sympathetic to their plight.
Since then, they’d moved fast, heading north at a brisk pace, stopping seldom, and then only for a few minutes at a time. Anya was anxious on Lee’s behalf, but though the older woman’s limp seemed more pronounced and there was a grim set to her mouth, she was as matter-of-fact and good-humored as ever, never letting out a complaint. Ella and Janie kept close to her too, and Anya noticed Matthias and Janie in quiet conversation in the early afternoon, after which the stops grew more frequent, though no lengthier.
Anya herself drifted between the wanderers, but as the day wore on, impatience and anxiety rose up in her. The sense of being on edge only intensified when she fell in with Matthias and Tieran, so she walked aimlessly along the sunken lane, moving from group to group, pretending to be checking on the ever-gregarious Midge.
But Anya had no taste for the idle conversation others attempted to draw her into, and by the evening halt, she found herself reluctantly returning to Matthias at the head of the band. To her annoyance, Tieran was gone. She’d seen him walking with Matthias not half an hour ago, and now there was no sign of him. It wasn’t that she particularly wanted to see him—in fact, she’d rather avoid him after the embarrassing way she’d bared her soul the night before—but it irritated her that he’d disappeared.
“He went up top,” Matthias said long-sufferingly, after Anya sighed for the third time in as many minutes. They were making a cold camp along the low road—no fires, dried rations, bedrolls spread along the packed earth of the lane. “I’ll boost you up.”
“Oh no, I—” Anya began to protest, but Matthias raised a hand.
“You’re not staying here with me, not when you’re all nervous edges.”
Anya frowned.
“You know, you’re much nicer to Tieran sometimes than you are to me,” she complained, though there was no bitterness behind the words. Matthias was unfailingly kind to everyone, even if he did fuss a little more over the thief he’d raised.
In answer, Matthias only got to his feet and held out a hand. “This is me being nice to you. You’ll figure that out eventually. Go on, then.”
Putting a foot into his cupped hands, Anya let herself be helped out of the hollow way and into the tangled woods above. As soon as she scrambled upright, a rhythmic sound that had been muffled by the earthen walls of the sunken lane caught her attention. It was not unlike the familiar noise of wood being split for the hearth, but softer, and more even. With a glance back at the wanderers, Anya headed in the direction of the sound.
It led her to a small clearing a quarter mile from the low road. At the center of the open space, Tieran paced back and forth. The same uneasiness rising to a fever pitch in Anya seemed to have afflicted him as well, the only difference being he’d found himself an outlet of sorts. In each hand, the thief held one of his throwing knives. All his restless energy had been honed to a point, and as he paced he would occasionally stop or turn, and launch one of the blades at a distant tree, or both blades in quick succession. That was the sound Anya had heard—the dull impact of a cutting edge striking wood—and as she stood watching Tieran, her lips parted.
Anya thought, suddenly, of her intention in traveling to the mountain and of the bone knife she carried. Seeing Tieran work so capably set despair uncurling in her belly. What was her intent, after all, but idle fancy? However powerful her wish for vengeance, she’d been brought up in peace and bred for one thing—sacrifice. She was made to shatter and made to suffer, and it was foolishness to grasp for anything else.
“Show me how to do that,” she said, before she could wish the words back.
Tieran did not startle at the sound of her voice, but he glanced over swiftly, uncertainty written across his face.
“Don’t think Weatherell girls are supposed to know how to throw knives,” he said, crossing the clearing to pull his blades out of an unoffending tree trunk.
“They’re not supposed to fall in with thieves, either,” Anya pointed out. “Or cut off their collars, or vanish on the high road, or wander about with half-finished prayers inked into their skin. I’m not a very good Weatherell girl, as it turns out.”
“Seem all right to me,” Tieran said.
Anya stepped out from among the trees and went to him.
“Please,” she said. “The world’s harder than I thought it would be. I want… I want to feel less helpless, while walking through it.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie, but nevertheless, the half-truth sat heavy in the pit of her stomach. Tieran was already wavering, though.
“I dunno, I—”
“Tieran.” Anya fixed her eyes on his, refusing to give way. “Don’t make me beg.”
Scrubbing his free hand across his face, the thief nodded. “You ever done this before?”
Anya laughed nervously. “No. I’ve skinned rabbits and butchered goats, but nothing like this.”
It was not Ilva’s ghost that looked out at her from the trees as she answered him and tried to collect her focus. It was a bastard version of the god of the mountain—an amalgamation of the effigy she’d seen at the Elect’s way station, and the creature the cautionary play had brought to life, and the demon that haunted Anya’s own imagining. Tall and shadowy and broad, he stalked the edges of the clearing, never fully visible through the trees, smoke trailing in his wake.
“I’ve never done this before either,” Tieran confessed. “Taught somebody, I mean. Maybe come over here?”
Anya took a step closer.
Tieran shook his head. “No. Closer yet. Like this.”
Reaching out, he pulled Anya nearer still, and turned her gently so her back was to him. It was the night he cut the band from her neck all over again, only this time, Anya knew that the way her heart thundered in her ears had nothing to do with the knives in his hand.
“You’re all tied up in knots, Weatherell girl,” Tieran said quietly. “Can’t throw nothing like that. Shut your eyes and let it go.”
Anya did as she was told, taking several deep breaths. Though her blood still sang in her veins and her pulse ran like a river in spring flood, a bit of the tension drained from her shoulders.
“Better,” Tieran said. “Now stand just so.”
His hands went from Anya’s shoulders to her hips and she did as she was told, shifting her feet, fighting to maintain the slight calm she’d settled into.
“Which hand?” Tieran asked.
“Um. Right.”
He pressed the hilt of a knife to her palm, and she glanced down at it. It was an unappealing, keen-edged thing, fit for violence and not much else. But Tieran arranged Anya’s grip around it as if he had gifted her something precious and fine. He showed her how to draw her arm back and where in the arc of her throw she ought to loosen her grip.
“Think you can manage?”
Anya blinked at the tree towering before them and envisioned the god of the mountain in its place. “We’re awfully close. Shouldn’t we back up a bit?”
She could hear the smile in Tieran’s voice when he answered. “This is plenty far enough for now. Gonna be surprised if you stick it, to be honest.”
Anya scowled and did as she’d been told, staying loose on her feet as Tieran stepped away.
“Don’t forget—keep that wrist locked up,” he cautioned.
The god of the mountain. The god of the mountain before her, wreathed in flame, with Ilva’s name on his monstrous tongue.
Anya threw the knife, and it stuck fast.
She turned on her heel immediately, cutting Tieran off as he began to say something congratulatory.
“Would that kill someone?” she asked.
The thief frowned. “Depends. On what you threw, and who it was, and where you hit them. I don’t do this to kill nobody, just so we’re clear, Anya. You were right—I like sharp things and it’s a trick that earns me a bit of coin if I show it off in market towns. But that’s all.”
Anya pulled her bone knife from its hidden sheath. “Could I kill someone with this? It’s sharper, now you looked after it.”
Tieran gave her a pained look. “Dunno? Expect you could kill somebody with anything, if you wanted it badly enough. That’s not gonna do much if you throw it, though. With that, maybe you could cut someone’s throat? But you’d have to go in from the side and really get your arm into it.”
“Show me,” Anya said, and Tieran pantomimed how it might be done—the thrust of the bone blade in through the side of the throat, the jerk of the arm forward to sever the artery and the windpipe.
When he handed the knife back, Tieran hesitated. “You got someone what wants killing? Because if somebody hurt you, you can just say.”
“No,” Anya lied. “It’s nothing like that. I’m just tired of being afraid, that’s all. Will you show me how to throw again? I want to be sure I remember.”
There was something uneasy in Tieran’s eyes, but he came to her at once and positioned himself behind her. Anya busied herself with finding the right stance, and it wasn’t until she felt the brush of his fingers against the base of her neck that she realized Tieran’s attention had settled on her in a new and entirely different way. When she turned, he drew his hand back quickly, guilt plain on his face.
“What were you—” she began.
Then she remembered the unreadable prayer, etched into the skin of her back. For a moment, she and Tieran only stared at each other, wide-eyed.
“You can read Divinitas,” Anya breathed, and Tieran, to his credit, did not lie. He only nodded miserably.
“Can read it on account of my father, from back before I joined the wanderers.”
“Will you tell me what the words say?” Anya asked, unable to hide her eagerness. “I can’t even read them, we’re only taught Brythonic.”
Tieran shook his head, fierce in his denial. “No. Not gonna do it.”
“Please,” Anya said. “I don’t want to ask the Elect. Not ever. But I don’t want to just live with not knowing, either.”
Fixing his eyes on the ground, Tieran flushed. “You’re wanting a lot from me today, you know that?”
In answer, Anya turned her back to him. She slipped out of her braces and pulled the shirt up over her shoulders, leaving her back laid bare. She could hear Tieran draw in a quavering breath, and then he was closer again, his fingers trailing across her skin.
“It’s from the Cataclysm,” he said. “But I don’t like it. You’re not gonna like it. And it isn’t finished, but I can tell you what the rest would say if it was.”
“Just read.”
Slowly, Tieran spoke the words.
“A garden enclosed is my lamb, my offering;
A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south;
Blow upon my garden, that the sacrifices thereof may flow out.
Let me come into my garden, and feast upon the offered fruits.
As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
My beloved is mine, and I shall feed upon her: I feedeth among the lilies.
Open to me, my lamb,
My love,
My sacrifice,
My undefiled.”
For a long moment, nothing was audible in the clearing but the wind and the night insects, already shrilling as the last dim remnants of daylight faded.
With infinite care, Tieran smoothed Anya’s shirt back into place. She stood as she was, and the tension that had plagued her all day came rising up with a vengeance. It blazed through her like fire, even as she cast her eyes on the woods and saw the shadowy form of the god, dogging her footsteps, haunting her path. This time he had Ilva at his side, one of his ponderous hands on her narrow shoulder, and her face was a mask of agony.
“Anya?” Tieran said. “You all right?”
When she turned to him, all she could feel was flame, searing everything that lay beneath her skin.
“I’m not his,” Anya said adamantly, even as Tieran nodded in agreement. “Whatever they say, whatever they make of me, I’m going to choose what I give or don’t give, and it won’t be all of me, and I’ll never be his. You know that, don’t you?”
